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October 16, 2009
“I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
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This is not to say, I hasten to add, that we do not believe in anything; I mean, rather, that we hold an unshakable, if often unconscious, faith in the nothing, or in nothingness as such. It is this in which we place our trust, upon which we venture our souls, and onto which we project the values by which we measure the meaningfulness of our lives. Or, to phrase the matter more simply and starkly, our religion is one of very comfortable nihilism. -- Christ and Nothing
Posted by Vanderleun at October 16, 2009 3:18 PM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.
Your Say
It should be remembered that in the book of Genesis and with the Lord’s compassion, He covered the shame and guilt of our disobedient nakedness with animal skins. The skins protect us from the prying eyes of an evil world but not from His own disgust, which is written into law to us as natural men.
“You shall have not other gods before me.”
Even believing in nothing or saying “No one knows” will protect us from His righteous judgment of our sinful idolatry. We are saved from ourselves only by faith in His Christ. The early Christian church said it best with the Latin words “Solus Christos”.
Posted by: Denny at October 17, 2009 6:04 AM
Isn't the Universe infinitely malleable? That being so, does it not follow that belief in nothing will get the believer exactly that in the end? We are created but we are also creators. Worshipers of nothing go precisely to that end. Ex nihilo nihil fit.
Posted by: John Hinds at October 17, 2009 8:33 AM
Well said John,
I'm afraid that in my haste to post I left out the single word "not".
I meant to say: Belief in nothingness or saying "no one knows" will NOT protect us from His righteous judgment of our sinful idolatry.
Posted by: Denny at October 19, 2009 5:10 AM
The Jews recite a prayer at the end of a formal service in which they contrast themselves with the other nations, because of Whom they worship. It is called the Aleinu, which means "Upon us." It begins with the statement that "it is incumbent upon us to worship the Lord of all, to ascribe greatness to the Shaper of Creation, for He has not made us like the nations of the world, nor like the families of the earth. Our lot is different than theirs, and our destiny is different than all of theirs."
Then comes a statement which is omitted by most prayer books, because it was forbidden to be said by Christian rulers from the middle ages onward -- although the prayer has nothing to do with Christianity, is ascribed to the prophet Joshua, at the time of the fall of Jericho, and by its omission of any mention of the restoration of the Temple, obviously dtaes from before the time of the Temple's destruction.
At any rate, the omitted lines read: "For they bow down to emptiness and the void, and pray to a god who does answer."
Indeed they do, as is now becoming apparent.
Posted by: Punditarian at October 19, 2009 8:19 AM